Betrayal of Trust

Chapter 18

I had ended the call with Captain Hoyt and taken one very hot taste of chicken when the phone rang again.

“Hey,” Ross Connors said. “Where are you?”

“Centralia,” I said. “On my way back to Olympia.” I didn’t mention that I had stopped off for lunch. That was on a need-to-know basis only.

“I just got a call from the crime lab in Spokane. It took a while for them to figure out Josh’s computer password so they could access his files. I passed that along to Todd.”

I would have been surprised if Todd Hatcher hadn’t already found his own access to the data he had lifted from Josh’s hard drive, but I let that pass without comment.

“The kid played chess,” Ross continued. “He had a half-dozen Internet chess games going at any one time, but what’s more interesting is that this really is a case of bullying-cyber bullying. Josh kept a file called My Life on his computer that contained copies of all his text messages, even after he deleted them from his cell phone. Spokane sent a copy of the file to Todd and one to me. Katie just printed it out. Some of the messages call Josh MM for Meth Mouth. Let’s see, here’s a brief sample: ‘You’re too stupid to live.’ ‘Go back to where you came from.’ ‘How does it feel to be brain damaged?’ ‘Protect the gene pool-always wear a condom,’ along with the usual teenage crap saying he’s a queer. All told, there must be hundreds of derogatory comments.”

It was clear that the text messages mirrored the kind of taunting that had provoked the fights Josh had been cited for at school.

Call waiting buzzed. A glance at caller ID told me that Todd Hatcher was on the line. “Gotta go,” I told Ross Connors. “It’s Todd.”

Ross hung up before I had a chance to do so first.

“Hey, Todd,” I said. “What have you got?”

“Some information on the source of that video. It was sent to Josh Deeson from a computer located in Olympia. I’ve got a physical address for you,” he added. “Ready?”

I’m not one of those people who can talk on the cell phone and get it to take messages at the same time. The waitress had dropped off my check, so I grabbed that and wrote on the back of it.

“Shoot,” I said.

He read off an address on Seventeenth Avenue Southeast in Olympia. “It seems to be a kind of rec center or a shelter or something, sort of like a boys’ and girls’ club, only different.”

“It wouldn’t happen to be called Janie’s House, would it?” I asked.

“Just a minute.”

I heard him typing and then waiting. “Yup,” he said at last. “You got it. That’s what it’s called-Janie’s House. How did you know that?”

“I’m a detective, remember? What about the text messages sent to Josh Deeson?” I asked.

“Ross sent me a copy of those a little while ago. I didn’t tell him that I was already working on them. They’re certainly ugly enough. They all come from phones on the same cell phone account, one that leads back to Janie’s House. I ran a preliminary analysis on the texts. Based on language-usage profiles I’d say they were written by several different people-four or five at least-all of them ganging up on the same kid.”

“Do we have any record of him responding?”

“Josh saved copies of the texts that were sent to him. If he made responses, he didn’t save those. However, we may be able to get those from the receiving cell phone accounts. That’ll require another set of search warrants.”

“Let Ross know, so he can go to work on getting what we need.”

“What are you doing in the meantime?” Todd asked.

“I believe I’m going to pay a visit to Janie’s House. Before I go, I need two things.”

“What?”

“Send a copy of the video from Josh’s phone to my cell. Mel has a copy of it on her cell phone, but I need one, too. The other thing I need is a photo of Josh Deeson, preferably a jpeg. I know there was one on the Olympia Daily News Web site today, but I want to have one available that doesn’t show any connection to the news story. When I show up at Janie’s House, I want to be prepared with my own version of shock and awe.”

“It might take a while,” Todd cautioned.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m going to sit right here and do my homework on Janie’s House.”

I Googled Janie’s House and ended up reading the same information Mel had recounted to me earlier when I wasn’t paying attention. Now I was.

Felina Jane Goodson was fifteen years old when she went to war with her parents, who refused to let her apply for a learner’s permit until her grades improved. Janie Goodson had responded by running away from home. Two weeks later, while staying in a homeless camp near Tenino, she had been raped and bludgeoned to death in a crime that remained unsolved until 2007, when a Washington State Patrol cold-case squad got around to retesting old DNA evidence found at the scene, evidence that in 1985 had meant nothing. The new test linked the resulting DNA profile to a fifty-seven-year-old man serving life without parole in Walla Walla after being convicted in three other cases in which victims had been raped and killed.

The identification and subsequent conviction of Jane Goodson’s killer came twenty years too late for Deborah Magruder, Janie’s maternal grandmother. Deborah came from an old Washington family, one that had made a fortune in the timber industry. Deborah had spent the last years of her life and a good portion of her remaining wealth trying to help “troubled youth.” Her goal had been to create a “safe haven” where distressed young people could access a smorgasbord of needed services-counseling, food, and clothing, as well as educational help and direction.

The result was Janie’s House, a facility made up of three former residential homes that had been cobbled together to form a single unit. I was copying down the phone number when my phone buzzed, announcing an incoming message. The video was there along with a jpeg file of Josh Deeson’s most recent yearbook photo.

Then, with all my ducks very nearly in a row, I did something smart. I called Mel. That’s one of the first rules out of Police Academy 101-don’t go chasing bad guys all by your lonesome. That’s why God created partners-so you can have backup. But calling Mel made sense for more than one reason: I knew for sure she’d be royally ripped at me if I didn’t.

“How are things in Packwood?” I asked casually.

“One dead end after another,” she grumbled. “I executed the search warrant. Other than the eight hundred dollars, I found nothing of interest. So far I’ve talked to half a dozen of Rachel’s friends and none of them knows anything, either. Or, if they do, they’re not saying. Why?”

“We may have just caught a big break. Todd Hatcher tells me the snuff video was sent to Josh’s computer from one located at Janie’s House-that homeless shelter in Olympia.”

“The same shelter that was on that business card found in Rachel’s room?”

“The very one,” I said. “I’m planning on going there, but it occurred to me that if I want to go on living, I’d better give you a chance to go along.”

Mel laughed. “You’ve got that right.”

“Also, the crime lab in Spokane broke into the files on Josh’s computer. Along with a group of ongoing chess games, they also found a collection of ugly text messages that were sent to Josh. It turns out those texts came from cell phones that are billed to Janie’s House as well.”

“Sounds like your basic full-service shelter,” Mel said. “I’m on my way now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Do not speed,” I cautioned. “I promise, I won’t go anywhere near the place until you’re with me.”

Telling her not to speed was really wasting my breath. I had no doubt the blue bubble light was already firmly affixed to the Cayman’s roof and her lead foot was on the gas pedal.

“And don’t bother stopping for lunch,” I added. “I’ll bring the rest of my chicken to you in a doggy bag.”

“Do you mean to tell me that after that huge breakfast you went back to the Country Cousin for lunch?”

“Guilty as charged,” I said. “And I’m not apologizing for it, either. Wait until you try it.”

She laughed. “I’m glad you saved some for me,” she said. “Where should we meet?”

“At the hotel,” I suggested. “In the meantime, I’m going to drop by the high school and see if the principal there knows as much about his students as Conrad Philips knows about his.”

“If I were you,” Mel said, “I wouldn’t hold my breath on that score.”

Outside in the parking lot, I keyed the Olympia High School campus into my GPS. When I got there I soon found that Mel’s assessment was correct. The name of the principal was Annette Tompkins. She and Conrad Philips were both secondary-school principals. That meant they probably had similar schooling and credentials. Since Ms. Tompkins’s school was far larger than the one in Randle, I’m sure she brought home higher wages than he did. If I’d been writing their paychecks, that situation would have been reversed.

For one thing, once she knew I was there to discuss Josh Deeson, she was very reluctant to talk to me. She said she was sorry one of her students had died; she claimed no personal knowledge of Josh Deeson’s history or difficulties, to say nothing of his friends or enemies. It was only by taking Ross Connors’s name in vain that I finally got Ms. Tompkins to cough up the names and phone numbers of Josh’s summer-school teachers, both of whom were still in classes and currently unavailable for interviews. She also furnished the name and phone number for the chess club adviser, a guy named Samuel Dysart, who volunteered his services with the chess club, although he didn’t serve on the faculty in any other capacity. I tried his number, but when his phone went to voice mail, I hung up. This was something that required a live conversation, not a message left on someone’s answering machine.

Rather than wait around for classes to be dismissed, I headed back to the hotel. I figured I had about half an hour before Mel was due to arrive-long enough to stretch out on the bed and maybe grab a nap. It had been a short night and it was stacking up to be a long day.

I had been asleep for about fifteen minutes when Mel showed up. We’re a good pair. I didn’t ask her about how fast she had driven, and she downed my leftover chicken with no wry comments about that, either.

Ten minutes later we parked at the curb outside Janie’s House on Seventeenth Avenue Southeast. The three houses involved were all older homes in good repair. The lawns were mowed. The edges were trimmed. The exterior paint jobs were relatively new. From the article I had read I knew that the middle building, the one with the word OFFICE stenciled on the wall next to the doorbell, had once belonged to the shelter’s founder, Deborah Magruder.

Mel and I were standing on the front porch, preparing to ring the doorbell, when the front door was opened by a middle-aged woman with aggressively orange-and-purple hair and enough piercings to belie her age. “May I help you?” she asked.

There are times when those four words constitute a real offer of help. There are other times when they mean “Get lost.” This was an example of the latter.

Mel presented her badge and ID. “We’re with Special Homicide,” she said. “We’d like to speak to you about someone who is possibly one of your clients.”

“We don’t discuss our clients with anyone,” the woman said. “We’re here to help them. We’re not here to make it easy for cops to hassle them. Believe me, by the time the kids get to us, they’ve usually had a bellyful of people like you.”

“Homicide investigators?” Mel asked sweetly. “Some of your clients have been suspects in murder investigations?”

“I mean cops in general,” the woman said.

“And you are?” Mel persisted.

“My name is Meribeth Duncan. I’m the executive director of Janie’s House. I have nothing to say to you.”

Meribeth attempted to turn and go back inside, but somehow Mel managed to insert herself between the executive director and the front door.

“Does the name Rachel Camber mean anything to you?” she asked.

“No,” Meribeth said. “And I wouldn’t tell you if it did. The kids who come here do so with the understanding that the services we provide are confidential. Most of them are homeless or come from homes that are so horrendous that they’d be better off homeless. They come here needing a place to hang out where they can be safe and clean. Do you have any idea how hard it is to stay warm or dry or clean when you’re on the streets? We have showers here. We have clothes washers and dryers along with a supply of donated clothing.”

“What about beds?” I asked.

“Our mission is to serve as a drop-in center only,” Meribeth replied.

“What does that mean?”

“We provide counseling, educational support like homework help and computer access. We don’t allow for overnight accommodations. Our liability insurance specifically precludes us from doing so.”

That made me wonder. Rachel had told Kenny she’d be staying with “Janie.” That wasn’t true, but clearly she had stayed somewhere between the time she left home on Sunday and the time she turned up dead. We needed to know where she had stayed during that time, and if she had stayed there because she wanted to, or had she been held somewhere against her will?

“If you don’t know Rachel Camber,” Mel said, “what about Josh Deeson?”

Meribeth’s eyes narrowed. “The name sounds familiar, but. .”

“You may have heard it on the news this morning,” Mel said. “He’s Governor Longmire’s stepgrandson.”

“The kid who committed suicide?” Meribeth asked.

Anticipating that there would most likely be a female gatekeeper at Janie’s House, Mel and I had decided on a plan of action. Mel would do the talking. I would be in charge of show-and-tell. About the time the woman was saying she didn’t know Josh, I pulled out his photo and held it out to her.

“That’s him?” Meribeth asked. “That’s Josh?”

I nodded.

Meribeth shook her head. “He’s definitely not one of our clients. I’ve never seen him before. Besides, if he lived at the governor’s mansion, Josh Deeson was a long way from needing our kinds of services.”

“And this is Rachel,” I said. “Rachel Camber from Packwood, Washington. She was found dead, murdered, in a water-retention pond in Centralia early this morning. Her parents just went back home after identifying her body.”

This time Meribeth winced. It was a tiny gesture, but a telling one. Meribeth knew Rachel, and she didn’t try to deny it.

“Her name is Amber, not Rachel,” Meribeth said. “At least that’s the name she went by when she was here.” She sighed and then looked up and down the street. “I suppose you should come inside,” she added reluctantly. “We need to talk.”

She led us into the house-through a foyer, past a reception desk, and into a small office that had been carved out of what must once have been a spacious living room. She sat down behind a cluttered wooden desk and motioned Mel and me into chairs in front of it. We might have gotten off to a rocky start, but the mention of Rachel’s murder had broken down some of the barriers.

“What about the dead boy?” Meribeth asked. “Is he a suspect in her death?”

“Josh probably would have been,” Mel said, “but he died a good twenty-four hours before Rachel Camber was killed. That means he’s dead, but he’s also in the clear. You’re sure you’ve never seen him before?”

“Never!”

Meribeth’s answer was forceful. As far as I could tell, it was also truthful.

“So how does this work?” Mel asked, gesturing at the Janie’s House surroundings. “Kids can come here and stay for free for as long as they like?”

“No,” Meribeth answered. “As I said earlier, we’re not a group home facility. No one sleeps over. The shelter opens at seven in the morning and closes at ten at night. Drop-ins only. Generally boys hang out in the house west of here and girls on the other side. This building is the only one that’s truly coed. We have a library here as well as the computer lab. The other houses have TVs and VCRs, showers, kitchens, and laundry facilities. Here we try to maintain a kind of study hall atmosphere. During the school year we concentrate on academics. There’s some of that during the summer as well. A lot of our kids need remedial help, but during the summer months the emphasis is on having fun.”

“Supervision?” I asked.

“We have volunteer houseparents who manage each building,” she said. “Those are often former clients who’ve gone on to make better lives for themselves. And don’t think what we do here is free. We don’t charge money for our services, but the kids who come here are expected to help out. They do chores-dusting, sweeping, painting, loading dishwashers, yard work-just like kids are supposed to do at home.”

“You make computers and cell phones available to your clients?” Mel asked.

“Of course. Social networking is vital these days. Kids who are too poor to have access to e-mail or texting are marginalized or even ostracized. We do what we can to rectify that. There’s a cell phone in each building that’s for client use, and we have a total of ten computers.”

“Do you keep track of Internet usage?”

“We keep track of who uses the computers, but we certainly don’t monitor what they do on them, and we don’t censor them, either,” Meribeth said.

“What about attendance?” I asked. “Do you keep track of who comes and goes, check photo IDs, anything like that?”

Meribeth shook her head. “No. We’re a support system and we’re privately funded. We don’t have to keep attendance records to justify our existence.”

“What about those chores?” I asked. “Are there sign-up sheets for those?”

“Yes,” she said. “The houseparents handle those. They’re in closer contact with the kids than I am, but this is all done on a first-name basis only. Or at least what they claim to be their first names. And we don’t keep track of those, either. We work on an honor system. I assume you know what that is.”

The first-name-only ploy was just that-a ploy to protect Janie’s House clients from people like Mel and me. I didn’t much like Meribeth’s snide “honor system” dig, either, but I didn’t push back right then because I saw Mel was reaching into her purse and retrieving her phone. That meant she was about to deliver some serious push-back of her own.

“Do you happen to offer any drama classes here?” Mel asked. “Or filmmaking?”

“We don’t offer any official classes as such,” Meribeth said. “We have a staff of volunteer tutors that comes in to help out as needed. That’s not to say that some of our clients aren’t involved in those kinds of classes, however. We actively encourage those pursuits. Through the years we’ve found that creative arts activities can be very therapeutic.”

“I’m sure,” Mel said agreeably. “And I can tell you for sure that some of your clients have a real flair for the dramatic. If you don’t mind, I’d like to show you something.”

“What?”

“It’s a film clip that we believe may have originated here. At least it was sent out as a file first from one of the computers in this building and then from one of your cell phones. You’ll probably find it to be graphic, offensive, and quite shocking. We did, too. You do know what a snuff film is, don’t you?”

“A snuff film?” Meribeth repeated. “You mean one of those movies where someone is actually killed on-screen? If that’s what you’re about to show me, I’m not interested,” she declared. “I will not watch such a thing. I won’t allow you to show it to me. You need to leave now. If you don’t, I’ll call the police.”

“We are the police,” Mel reminded her. “And you don’t need to worry. It turns out that although this film is very convincing, it’s also make-believe. We now know that the young woman who is supposedly being murdered in this video, the girl you said was Amber, was still alive for a period of time after the film was made.”

Without saying anything further, Mel activated the clip. Despite Meribeth’s protestations, there was absolute silence in the room as the clip played. By the time it finished playing, Meribeth Duncan’s face was ashen.

“Are you sure she wasn’t really dead?” Meribeth asked. “It looked so real.”

“Yes, it did look real,” Mel agreed, “but according to the medical examiner, she didn’t die until sometime later.”

“And you think one of my clients is behind this. . this. .”

Unable to find a strong enough word to express her horror, Meribeth left the sentence unfinished.

“The clip was downloaded onto one of your computers here, probably from a thumb drive,” Mel explained. “Next it was uploaded to one of your cell phones. From there it went to Josh Deeson’s phone. That’s where it was found early Monday morning. We believe your cell phones were also used to send Josh any number of ugly text messages.”

“Josh-the boy who committed suicide?”

“Yes,” Mel said. “That happened yesterday morning. Rachel Camber’s body was found early this morning, but the coroner estimates that she was killed only a few hours before she was found.”

“What do you need from me?” Meribeth asked.

“We’re in the process of getting a search warrant so we can access your phone and Internet records. I’m expecting it to show up any minute.”

“You won’t need a warrant,” Meribeth said. “As far as I’m concerned, you have my full cooperation.”